This invention relates to electric lamps in general and, in particular, to a supplemental high mounted stop lamp for motor vehicles. More specifically, the invention deals with such a lamp featuring improved means for mounting the lamp to a windowpane, typically the rear windowpane of a motor vehicle, and, in so doing, electrically connecting the lamp to a power supply.
The high mounted stop lamp is finding ever increasing use on motor vehicles, passenger cars in particular, to supplement the stop lamp system and to provide a signal through intervening vehicles to operators of following vehicles. Some supplemental stop lamps are mounted high on the interior surface of the rear windowpane. Typically, such a lamp comprises a row of light emitting diodes mounted to a printed circuit board and electrically connected to the conductive pattern thereon. The light emitting diodes together with the printed circuit board is housed in a horizontally elongated, boxlike lamp body. This lamp body had an open side which is closed by a lens or lenses and which is contoured to fit the inside curvature of the rear windowpane.
Conventionally, this type of supplemental stop lamp was mounted by bonding the open side of the lamp body directly to the rear windowpane. For supplying power to the light emitting diodes, the printed circuit board was electrically coupled to cables which extend out of the lamp housing for connection to the battery of the vehicle by way of cable harnesses.
This conventional practice is objectionable for several reasons. First, the mounting of the supplemental stop lamp and its electrical connection to the power supply constituted two separate jobs. The mounting of the stop lamp will become much easier and less time consuming if it is electrically connected to the power supply at the same time it is mounted in position on the windowpane. Second, the weight of the cables added to that of the stop lamp, making it more susceptible to detachment from the windowpane due to the bumps and vibrations of the vehicle.
Third, the cables were subject to deterioration with the lapse of time. Such deteriorated cables were easy to break with vehicle bumps and vibrations, particularly at their connections to the stop lamp. The use of cables is objectionable for esthetic reasons, too, as some lengths of the cables were visible through the rear window of the vehicle.